“Blood is pouring out”… Identity of ‘1.65 million’ YouTuber’s angry ‘video’ [김소연의 엔터비즈]

/Photo = Getty Image Bank

If you only look at the titles, it’s hard to tell them apart. The concept and even the camera composition are the same. You have to compete with your bright idea, but as soon as it gets noticed, clones spring up like mushrooms. This is the ‘video copy’ issue that has rapidly emerged as a threat to the YouTube ecosystem. Recently, it has been pointed out that while plagiarism can be done more easily using AI (artificial intelligence), institutional measures are needed to prevent this.

Recently, Mr. A, the CEO of a famous YouTube channel production company, had a surprising experience. A video copying the content that Mr. A and his team came up with and prepared for months to present was uploaded to another channel. This channel had a history of copying and presenting Mr. A’s other popular content. Even the performers were so similar that viewers were confused. An official who saw this said, “No matter how well it goes, everyone says they will use it, but unlike broadcasting, YouTube pays less attention, and it seems to be that bad.”

Last month, a video titled ‘Video Copy Status’ that arose among cooking YouTubers became controversial. Choi Hyun-mok, who runs the YouTube channel ‘10,000 Won Cooking Choi Siblings,’ said, “I will speak from my convictions,” and a video suspected of plagiarism posted almost two months after it was uploaded to the B cooking channel received the benefit of an ‘algorithm’ and received more views. He even raised the issue that the B Channel video was being attacked as “plagiarized.”

Mr. Choi pointed out, “Rather than the recipe, the composition, dialogue, and screen of the video, which are rapidly increasing, are all the same, and were copied without the original author’s permission.”

/Photo = Video capture from YouTube channel ‘10,000 Won Cooking Choi Siblings’

The number of contents that copy an ambiguous concept or imitate an atmosphere is difficult to count. Just as content in the form of conversations while drinking was once popular after the drinking ‘mukbang’ talk show mushroomed, when a certain keyword becomes popular, a large number of similar videos are created, and this trend has been repeated for several years.

Recently, plagiarism has become easier and faster using AI. Last year, ‘Review Owl’, a science and film YouTuber with 1.65 million subscribers, posted a video titled ‘My YouTube is being stolen’, and YouTuber C included the original video and thumbnail (preview image) he had created. It was pointed out that videos similar to the script were continuously uploaded.

Mr. C himself appeared on a YouTube broadcast and said, “This is possible by using three (AI) programs: Noah AI, Clobanote, and Lutton.” He added, “Even if you don’t know anything about space, you can write a script for a space-related video for 3 hours.” “If you can, you can make it,” he said. The original author, Review Owl, was angry and said, “It took several months to read a scientific paper and make a video, but someone completed the script in 3 hours. It makes my blood boil.”

Replication using AI technology is done by listening to the sound of the original video, extracting it as text, and then adding images and videos to create content. Using Google Image Search, you can easily find images similar to those used in the original video, allowing you to copy videos that others have put in effort into in a short period of time. The YouTube channel that Review Owl raised the issue is known to operate content in this way and earn millions of won per month.

Additionally, there are concerns that such plagiarism is becoming more sophisticated since the advent of ChatGPT. There is also discussion about whether working with text without one’s own source knowledge using ChatGP, using it to create images, and working on content that can be monetized should be viewed as plagiarism or as a new creation.

/Photo = Getty Image Bank

Article 136 (Penalty Provisions) of the Copyright Act stipulates that ‘any person who infringes on copyright property rights or other property rights protected under this Act by means of reproduction, performance, public transmission, display, distribution, rental, or creation of derivative works shall be punished for not more than five years. It is stipulated that the offender shall be punished by imprisonment or a fine not exceeding 50 million won.

However, it is pointed out that it is difficult to detect and hold accountable the rapidly changing plagiarism situation with the current copyright law. The criteria for how much it can be considered plagiarism, such as similarity in format and genre, thumbnails and subtitles, are also unclear.

Deok-Hyeon Jeong, a pop culture critic, said, “There is content that has a standardized form, but it seems difficult to clearly distinguish whether it can be linked to forms such as live broadcasts due to the similarity of format and content.” He added, “However, even if it is difficult to legally sanction, viewers may have seen “If you feel that things are ‘the same’ or ‘similar,’ it could become an ethical and moral issue,” he said.

Korea’s copyright law was first enacted in 1957, and the current copyright law was revised in 2006. Previously, copyrighted works were defined as ‘creative works within the scope of literature, scholarship, or art,’ but from now on, they were newly defined as ‘creative works expressing human thoughts or emotions.’ The scope of recognition has been expanded to include not only literature, academics, or art, but also creative works expressing human thoughts or emotions in the category of copyrighted works.

Since then, as the number of single creators has increased and platforms have diversified, cases of copyright infringement have increased, and in 2021, 15 years later, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed a full revision of the Copyright Act. It is a response to the change in the environment for creation and copyright use through various online platforms such as YouTube, blogs, and social networking services (SNS). However, the entire amendment failed to pass the National Assembly.

However, the Korean Copyright Commission’s position is that not only the copyright but also adjacent copyrights must be licensed, and if profits are made, they have the right to distribute them. In addition, it is known that as creators sometimes do not recognize the concept of copyright due to a lack of knowledge, education on this is also provided.

Kim So-yeon, Hankyung.com reporter [email protected]